Monthly Archives: October 2015

For a retired priest and spiritual director i maybe don’t mention God as much as people would expect me to. This isn’t to do with lack of faith, in fact quite the reverse it’s due to a security and certainty. If hell is a place of torment and separation then many of us have lived in and experienced hell many times in our life. Childhood trauma and abuse, some of my darkest times are boarding school some of my friends experiences in the military, all remind us of the hideous life on this planet. By reverse the reality of heaven is about joy and the old-fashioned word Bliss means the joy of heaven. Jesus himself said, I come that you might have and enjoy life in all its fullness in abundance until it overflows. That’s what I want you to have life in all its fullness in abundance until it overflows. If you’re not having that life we have to ask why, what are you struggling with what makes life feel more like hell than heaven what we going to do about it. The expression lies damned lies sticks out for me, the soap opera type of existence were always hiding round a corner being selective with the truth and unable to come to anything with a clear heart and clear conscience.

Family life can be more dysfunctional than the relationship between Israel and Palestine long-running histories of feuding and anger and bitterness and resentment. Sometimes a simple bridge is needed to move people from where they are to wear they need to be. I’m a firm believer in sitting down with people and having a cup of tea.

I was once told that our sovereign Lady the Queen sits down each afternoon with her friends or whoever’s visiting and apparently and I’m not able to verify this she makes the tea herself she makes earl grey using malvern water and in the ritual of the making of the tea there are are various acknowledgements. first acknowledgement being you’re welcome let’s sit down and have some space and please enjoy my hospitality. the maze prison was harbouring or keeping captive or whatever the phrase should be lots of terrorists freedom fighters political prison prisoners it was a very difficult place told to live. At first the exercise yard’s were places of abuse of shouting and swearing as people from rival political factions walked alongside perimeter fences passing their enemies in another exercise ground after a time they ran out of known swear words and had to start making up her own terms of abuse, as the months and the years rolled by even that became ineffectual and then an extraordinary thing began to happen., People of opposite persuasions began to say good morning to each other again to engage in meaningful dialogue, hurts began to heal.

When under a particular political agreement many of those prisoners were released to local community, an organisation started to hold mornings with tea and biscuits and one of those mornings a man arrived to be offered hospitality around the table, as a lady offered him a cup of tea he realise that she was the mother of somebody that he had killed, she then uttered the fantastic words of forgiveness, don’t worry sit down and have cup of tea. Likewise a famous Cuban freedom fighter was assassinated. During his lifetime as well as organising much revolutionary activity he had set up a medical charity. Many years later his assassin was going blind and that charity that Che Guevara had established organised and paid for the operation to restore the assassins site. Hopefully most of your dilemmas, most of your hellish experiences fall short of these horrors, they might not. However I come back to that little phrase to have and enjoy life and life in all its fullness. As a paraplegic life coach, my life is somewhat different to the average person .

My day begins at 6 o’clock in the morning when carer arrives to sort out all sorts of personal needs, to press buttons and use hoists to lift me out of bed and take me through to my bathroom.

After all of that’s out the way I come back into a little shed, an office in my garden I stop and I pause and I communicate with the divine, meditate and I bask in presence of the knowledge of all that is bigger than me, that is more powerful than me both beyond and within. I like to listen to a recording of the previous day’s daily service on radio four long wave, at its worst it’s a parody of all the things that television comedy scriptwriters say about the Church of England and the Conservative party, at its best it’s a wonderful reminder of childhood school assemblie. S the singing of hymns the reading of parables. The Feeling of being part of a greater good that is bigger than oneself.

At this time of year when I go to my garden office it can be a little bit chilly but I want to refrain from putting the heating on, and quite like to leave the door open so the dog can run in and out. Days like today when the sun has risen the sunlight is coming into this little wooden building, I feel that I am in a simple way enjoying the foretaste of heaven in the now. As I dictate this blog entry into a clever piece of technology that will help me type it up my little dog sits on my lap, she is a pug , so she purrs like a cat and as she sits and she purrs I experience another foretaste of heaven in the now.

I live on the Thames estuary on a little place called Canvey Island and I’m blessed to enjoy the marina , the prom , the seafront and the old cafe. These things remind me of beauty and the good of the world. To stop, to see it to receive kindness and a cup of tea, somebody to listen to you somebody to explore with you.

My passionate desire to sit with you to enjoy your company to share a pot of tea and through those simple things to take you on a journey from where you are to where you could be to have and enjoy life in all its fullness. Please do contact soul companion if there is anything I can do to assist you.

Recently various people have been asking me about my style of life coaching. What I wanted to talk to you about today is that style and why it might work for you. Imagine that you have a beautiful picture that’s been in your family for generations, a picture that you painted when you were younger, perhaps a picture that a friends child or a family member painted for you. Somewhere along the line painting has been put into a really hideous frame. And we all know how this works. If you like me are the kind of person who enjoys going to an art gallery and looking at old paintings you will know how you can see a fantastic oil painting but it’s been hung in the most gruesome overcomplicated guilt gold leaf frame with cherubs, and all sorts of things sticking out of corners and you can’t really focus on the painting because you’re distracted by the frame .

so thats the starting point of how my life coaching works we look at the picture of your life and we look at the things which are stopping you enjoying that picture to the full, using that picture and maybe the frame that it’s been hung in as a metaphor we see how we can reframe the picture of you, to take you to a better place.

Life is quite often described as a journey. I used to enjoy railway journeys.

As my disability has progressed and as public transport systems have become more chaotic coping with finding somebody who can get the ramp set up to get me on and off an overhead train seems to have become increasingly complicated but that’s my issue and it’s something that I be working on as I want to carry on enjoy enjoying public transport.

As a young person I attended a boarding school and I would travel to and from school with other student staff et cetera on a train from Marylebone Station in London to bambury that was the nearest station to my school . Two Journey .The journey back to school and the journey away from school back to home. I loved one of those journeys and you can probably guess which one ,and the other because I wasn’t entirely happy at school filled me with fear and dread. you get on the train ,where do you get off the train, and what you do while on the train. Trains strike me as far cleaner places than they used to be it doesn’t seem that long ago that trains were smoky places with people drinking overly priced cheap spirits from the minibar smoking like chimneys and enjoying the traditional bacon lettuce and tomato sandwich. Today train seem fairly clinically clean and very good news for some .There is generally a silent carriage or a quiet garage where mobile phones are not allowed to be used, technology is discouraged,screaming children are kept at bay and you can relax. As we look to explore your life journey I think it might help you to compare that journey to a train journey. I think a lot of you are on a train that somebody else has put you onto telling you that you must go for a period of time to a destination that you’re not really over keen to attend.

I remember that glorious summer in the 80s when I was about to turn 16 and I had decided enough was enough and whether my parents , school or anybody else understood . knew that my last day at school had arrived I got out a black marker pen and I got lots of people to sign their name and write messages all over my blazer and I left school for the last time. The threshold of the future, standing staring into eternity the train glidesinto the glorious unknown, an unknown full of adventure, chaos an unknown full of possibility. An unknown where you can be in control even if your control is the control of accepting that things are out of control. So here at attitude life coaching and soul companion my biggest joy is to invite you to embark on a new journey . I’m offering my help as a spiritual director and life coach to see you embarking on a journey to the places that you choose to explore .

I invite you to look through the train timetable to pick the destination that excites you to climb onto the train of your future perhaps you will see me as train train driver, the ticket inspector the person that you meet on the journey. maybe you just need somebody to listen for a while maybe it’s just a case of being brave enough to take back control .my job isn’t to tell you what to do, my job is to give you the space to discover what you need what you want, what you hope for. The space to find the quiet voice within ,that speaks to you and guides you forward. Let’s become excited about exploring journey together I look forward to working with you.

I charge for my time on a sliding scale depending on your income and we discuss this when we first meet. This will be from the minimum wage upwards and is based on your hourly income and outgoings. It's up to your honesty and this forms part of the process. I am also able to take payment in kind, help with gardening, dog walking, home repairs, driving, the cooking of dinner in exchange for my time,